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REVERSE OSMOSIS BRINE TREATMENT: TECH ADVANCEMENTS TO MINIMIZE VOLUME & COST

Reverse Osmosis Brine Treatment: Tech Advancements to Minimize Volume & Cost
January 8th 2019

Key Takeaways:
Reverse Osmosis is considered the workhorse of desalination. Applied correctly, Reverse Osmosis Brine Treatment can be highly effective and lower cost than thermal alternatives.
RO recovery and RO brine concentration is limited by osmotic pressures or membrane scaling; both limits have been increased by new technology.
New ultra high pressure RO membranes can achieve pressures of 1,800 psi, 50% higher than previous, enabling 50% brine volume reduction if membrane scaling can be managed. These second generation membranes are available in systems such as XtremeRO.
A series of techniques described in this document can be used to delay or mitigate scale, but in many cases only chemical softening truly removes the risk.
A modernized, compact chemical softening technology – BrineRefine – developed for RO brine treatment can be used to entirely remove membrane scaling risk and realize RO’s full brine volume reduction potential.
Fully integrated RO and chemical softening solutions with central optimization and control can further maximize overall economics and recovery. BrineGo is one example of such a unified system.
How does Reverse Osmosis Work?
Reverse osmosis (RO) is the workhorse of desalination. High pressure is used to drive water through specially-engineered semipermeable membranes that reject salt ions. Recovery increases with higher brine concentration relative to inlet salinity, squeezing more freshwater from the salt water. Osmotic pressure also increases with brine concentration, which requires higher driving pressures and reduces freshwater permeate flux requiring larger membrane area.

https://www.saltworkstech.com/articles/reverse-osmosis-brine-treatment-minimize-volume-cost/?group=Reverse%20Osmosis%20Desalination